What To Expect From Apple's Big iPhone 8 Event

On September 12, Apple executives will give what might be the year's most anticipated Powerpoint presentation. And unlike most slideshows, it will actually be interesting.

As usual, many of the juiciest details have already come out before the show starts. Given the thousands of people needed to bring any Apple product to life, it's inevitable that things leak.

So considering the information that's dribbled out, the places where it came from, and simply what makes sense for Apple going forward, here's what we expect on Tuesday—and what's worth caring about.

A $1,000 iPhone, plus two cheaper ones.

Apple usually sells new phones in an on-off pattern. One that's new inside and out (the iPhone #) then one that just has new guts inside (the iPhone #S). This year, we're technically due for the iPhone 7S, but leaks and common sense indicate we're in for more than an incremental upgrade on the iPhone's 10th anniversary. All the rumors point to a trio of phones: a flashy, new, expensive iPhone and the iPhone 7S and 7S Plus we're otherwise due for.

Update: The fancy phone is almost certainly the 'iPhone X,' and the other new phones will be the 8 and 8 Plus.

Related Story

The new iPhone will certainly be pretty. It will have a huge screen that covers the entire front except a small notch for the front-facing camera and speaker. And that screen will be organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) instead of liquid crystal display (LCD), which means it will be very, very pretty, and draw less power from your battery. The new iPhone will also be expensive. Leaks suggest $1,000, which is a bit more than other 'premium' phone offerings, like the Galaxy S8 ($750) and the Essential Phone ($700), but is pretty close to the Galaxy Note 8 ($930).

Will it be worth it? Hard to predict. Phones have reached something of a plateau of functionality. Still, the new iPhone has a few rumored flagship features. One is a fancy new authentication method. The new iPhone's full-screen face means the Home button is gone. Apple may add a fingerprint reader to the rear (like most Android phones have), but the leaks suggest facial recognition will be a prominent feature.

Related Story

Major evidence for this is Apple's acquisition of a startup called RealFace, which specializes in exactly that. Also code that Apple accidentally published to the world also indicates the new iPhone will have an infrared sensor for seeing your face in the dark. Facial recognition has been on plenty of Android phones before, but in janky easily-foolable form. Adding refined facial recognition now would jive with Apple's "best, not first" mentality.

There are other potential fingerprint solutions, but they seem less likely for now. Qualcomm, which makes the chips that run a great many Android phones, has shown tech allowing phones to read a fingerprint through a screen. That's the dream, but for now it's very slow, and the current iPhone fingerprint scanner is too fast to expect people to be patient enough for anything less.

The best hope for fingerprint scanning could be a side-mounted thumbprint scanner, like on the Sony Xperia Z5 or Nextbit Robin. That's a way to keep print scanning, a crucial part of Apple Pay, without ruining that big beautiful screen. That, or a copycat back sensor like virtually every Android phone.

Another major potential feature is some form of wireless charging, but perhaps more than the phone-on-charging-puck tech like you've seen on many Android phones. Bloomberg says that Apple is working on a phone that can charge as long as it is within a certain radius of a charging hub. It sounds sci-fi, but the tech exists. If Apple can build something that will accomplish that without sterilizing everyone in the room, it will have set a new standard for what we should expect from wireless devices. Again, this fits with "best, not first" but it also may not show up until next year's iPhones.

Then of course there are rumors of two cheaper phones, likely a fairly traditional upgrade to iPhone 7S and 7S Plus. For these, expect a more reasonable price, as well as modest upgrades to speed and camera, perhaps along with a trick or two we haven't heard of yet. Just don't expect these phones to have any features unique to them—the new iPhone will likely boast all the cool stuff introduced this year.

A new Apple Watch with LTE and maybe some high-tech wristbands

The Apple Watch is the most successful smart watch but smart watches haven't set the world on fire. And a slight revision won't change that. So we could be in for something a bit more radical. Thinner, lighter, faster, and perhaps with features like a front-facing camera and the option for an LTE connection.

The limiting factor is battery. The current Apple Watch's battery life (one day per charge) is just barely tolerable. Adding data and cellular access with a SIM will only tax the watch more and shorten its life even further. The sell might be on modular wristbands that add additional battery, or health features like glucose monitoring. Apple has been hiring biomedical specialists, acquired a sleep tracking company called Beddit, and put lots of resources into the tracking software for wheelchair users. Health monitoring is clearly a priority, and the Apple Watch is the logical place to put all that effort.

An Apple TV with 4K and HDR

Leaked code revealed the existence of an Apple TV that supports 4K and HDR, which is great—so long as your TV is new enough to support either feature. Other than that, the biggest Apple TV news could be improvements to Siri, which only recently came to the fourth-generation Apple TV. Functions like, "What should I watch?" and "What did they say?" are really useful, especially in the absence of a keyboard. Hopefully there are some more fun tricks where that came from. But don't expect anything particularly groundbreaking—or worth buying a new Apple TV for if you already have one.

Also, the Apple TV is ten years old this year. Crazy, right?

The Rest

HomePod — Apple's Echo/Alexa, but with better sound quality and focus on its speaker capabilities. Expect some mention of this, since it's about two months from its scheduled release, but we also heard quite a bit about it at its announcement earlier this year.

A1844 — This small Bluetooth/NFC thing showed up in an Apple patent, but it sounds like it's actually a component for the doors around Apple's new headquarters. If it is something like an Apple Pay reader for retail, like Square, it'd be a lot more interesting. Don't hold your breath.

iMac Pro — slated for December release as well, this is a new computer that's great for video editors and basically nobody else. It's an expensive computer with all of Apple's best hardware. This was mentioned in the last WWDC, so expect some update.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Popular Mechanics participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.